Dovizioso and Hayden more optimistic on Friday

Ducati Team riders Andrea Dovizioso and Nicky Hayden reported a more upbeat Friday at Misano and believe they can hope for greater amounts of positivity this weekend than at recent races.

Local man Dovizioso ended Day 1 of the weekend in eighth place, with Hayden four positions further back, but both believe more is possible this weekend.

"We have to see how much the others riders can improve," Dovizioso told motogp.com, having last year missed out on a podium place by just three thousandths of a second as he rode for Monster Yamaha Tech3. "We are quite close now but I think (other riders) can go under 1’34. We will have to see how much we can improve our lap times by, but the feeling is that we don’t really have a big margin. However, this track is quite tight and slow, so I think we are closer. We have to work to improve by a few tenths to be able to fight for some positions further in front of us."

Hayden also filed his progress report for Friday:

"It was definitely a bit bumpy, but we know Misano has always been bumpy so that is nothing we didn’t expect. Obviously, I wasn’t completely thrilled with today, but I do think we can improve quite a bit for tomorrow. There are two sections in which I am losing the most, but really I am going quite well. My ideal time is half a second faster and I am very confident we can do more tomorrow."

Misano is one of two home races for Ducati, following that of Mugello in June.